This continues the account of the five days and nights that studly 18 year old Mikey spends together with Mike, the 24-year old uncle he idolizes, and Mike's fascinating and beautiful 22-year old fiancée Alice. The beginning of their story is told in "Cross-Country with My Uncle," and continued by "Alice, My Uncle, and Me," day 1 and day 2, and Day 3, parts 1 and 2, and "My Uncle's Bachelor Party," parts 1 and 2, wherein Jeff, Mike's old college roommate and lover, is introduced.
By 8.30 Mike, Jeff, and I had arrived at Alice's. I wasn't quite certain what Alice had said to Jeff on the phone last night, but evidently it was something in the nature of an invitation to have a serious conversation with him. In any case, their reunion was remarkably cordial.
Mike turned to me and said, "Mikey, let's go for a little run." And of course I was very glad to. We went along the path that wound its way down from the back of Alice's townhouse, and it was very pleasant in the June morning, wearing just our running shorts and shoes. Though the last ten days had been incredible in their intensity: the new experiences and new personalities, one thing remained constant: it was the extreme pleasure that I had always taken in Mike's company all my life. And as ever, it was especially wonderful when he and I were alone and I absorbed all his attention. Running alongside of him, it was just sublime. And when he looked over to me and grinned at me, I felt warm and happy, as though I were basking in a beam of purest sunshine. It was a sort of magic.
"Mikey, I have a good feeling about Jeff and Alice. She and I have been over the subject again and again, and she has the best of intentions, but we've had relatively little hope that Jeff would prove to be flexible. But it seems that we may have been mistaken. Since he's been here, Jeff seems to be much mellower than in the past. Anyway, he has accepted Allie's invitation to visit with her, chat with her, and his anxiety when he's with me has entirely dissolved, and, more importantly, there doesn't seem to be any evidence of the kind of bitterness toward Alice that he once could not help but show."
"Gee, I hope so, Uncle," I said. "I really like him."
"Well, you hardly know him, really, but if you do come to know him better, you may be astonished. He's a deeply fascinating and talented guy."
On the whole 6 mile trail, there was only one grade crossing. We had to stop and wait nearly 90 seconds for the traffic signal to change. Standing there, Mike turned to me, looked me in the face, and put his big hand on my bare shoulder. The power of his gaze directly into my eyes, combined with his gentle smile, almost transfixed me. I was instantly 100% percent alert, and yet, at the same time, paradoxically almost paralyzed, and warm waves of profound pleasure at his touch radiated from his hand and propagated across my shoulder, up my neck, to my ears and scalp, and across my chest, and down across my belly and into my genitals. The hair all over my chest and forearms and legs erected at once, and the prickling of the skin of my scrotum was remarkable. My cock began to expand. I cannot begin to explain his power to control me absolutely, with the slightest effort - no, with no actual effort at all.
He said, "Mikey, day after tomorrow Alice and I'll be flying off to Maui, and you'll be heading to Colorado." With a new shine in his eyes, he continued, "There's no way that I can tell you what these last ten days have meant to me." He took his hand from my shoulder, and in a brief gesture touched my cheek. I instantly was wholly erect, tenting my little running short right there beside the road carrying heavy, slow-moving traffic. God knows what the drivers thought. But in a second or two the light had finally turned in our favor, and we resumed our run. I was thinking, "There's no way he could tell me what these ten days have meant to him! But God knows, my life has been revolutionized!" I had thought I had been happy before last week's trip with my uncle - and indeed I had been. But a new door in my life had opened, and I found that there were altogether new planes of pleasure and deep psychic satisfaction that I had never even dreamed could have existed. I knew that circumstances soon would necessarily take me and Mike apart, but somehow I was absolutely certain that all the rest of our lives we would love each other just the way we did today, no matter what. And that this certainty would sustain me throughout any and all future separations that necessarily would come to pass.
We got back to Alice's place and Alice and Jeff were still sitting together at the little table on her patio, talking earnestly. Mike and I had seen them from a hundred yards away; but so intent were the two interlocutors on each other than they had not noticed us until they could almost smell us, covered as we were with sweat from our vigorous run.
They broke their conversation to greet us. Allie looked at her watch and observed that they had only a few minutes before they needed to go to the airport to pick up Mike's folks. Because of some late business in New York, Mike's parents (my grandma and granddad) had taken the red eye from Philadelphia. My mom and dad would be arriving in the early afternoon midday on another flight, and in between Mike and Alice needed to take care of a couple of last minute details before the wedding rehearsal at 7 pm, and the rehearsal party that would soon follow.
So Jeff and I had the rest of the day to ourselves. Jeff had earlier suggested that we visit the Stanford campus, only a few miles away. Mike and Alice would use Mike's BMW, and Alice let me drive her pickup.
One of the things that most fascinated me about Jeff is that he was the most socially diglossal individuals I'd ever met. In formal discourse, Jeff spoke with remarkable grace. I didn't know it then, but Jeff's writings in places like the Annals of Analytic Philosophy were universally praised for their pellucid qualities, even when he was formulating the most complex and intricate arguments; and his ability to counter rebarbative criticisms in Yale philosophy workshops with learned ex tempore reposts, replete with quotations from Kant in the original 18th century German, was a matter of open and undisguised admiration of even his most earnest rivals. But I did know that when he spoke about matters of substance, he spoke with elegance and unusual clarity, though he always preserved the mild accents of East Texas.
But more often, around pals, he loved to talk as if he had never been out of the Big Thicket, and had never seen the right side of the 4th grade. "Shit fahr" [shit fire] was his favorite epithet, which he used indiscriminately as an adjective and interjection.
Jeff directed me to the campus and then to the special players' parking area right behind the Arrillaga Athletic Center, and we walked in. Only 24 months ago Jeff had been one of the biggest stars in Stanford baseball history, and he barely opened the door to the trainers room when he was hailed by two of his old teammates, now seniors, who were all over him with claps on the backs and friendly punches in the ribs.
When at last they'd parted, Jeff led me to the baseball workout room, and once again he was greeted with hoots and cheers by an ex-teammate and a trainer. When he'd caught up with them, and introduced me, he asked if we could work out, and of course we were invited to. They had every machine in the world, and in the last ten days I'd had a few runs and a little biking but it felt great to get a thorough workout for a change.
Just as we were starting the last iteration on our last machines in our cycle, in walked two guys in soaking wet sweats, a blond with a pitcher's glove, and the other, with light brown hair, carrying the tools of ignorance. Grinning and chatting, they strode into the locker room and we heard the clatter of equipment.
